Apocalypse, Wow: Disaster Ready Homes

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Gimmie Shelter

When the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse approach, to where will you retreat? If this seems like a relevant question, it’s likely you’re the type who—for reasons too complex to get into here—enjoys imagining disaster scenarios. But it’s only fun if you survive the apocalypse, and that requires a well-fortified home base.

When it comes to major emergencies, conventional houses’ traditional nods toward protection—such as fences, security-alarm systems, and gated communities—are for chumps. If you plan to survive a wide-scale disaster, you’re going to need a shelter fit for holding off the beasts and roaming marauders, not to mention the coming of hell and/or high water.

It’s impossible for any one structure to be impenetrable to every potential crisis, so emergency-minded homebuilders and buyers have to pick some favorites and hope they choose correctly.

The best disaster-ready homes are the ones that cover as many dangerous scenarios as possible and allow for ongoing survival, such as self-sufficient structures capable of generating their own power, and growing or catching food. On the other end of things, bomb shelters and panic rooms are limited survival plans, in that you must be able to leave the structure and return to a livable outside world. If that’s not an option, once you exhaust the supplies, these spaces become literal dead ends. With that thought to warm your heart, click ahead to see houses with differing styles of disaster preparedness.